


deal's a deal

by quinnking (orphan_account)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-19
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-26 00:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/644662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/quinnking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>when regina was born, rumplestiltskin took her. cora did all she could to get her back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	deal's a deal

**Author's Note:**

> this is a request from a friend on tumblr. here you go, lilly. i hope i did it justice. :-)

The pain is excruciating. Never in her young life did she think that she’d feel something so wretchedly painful. Of course, her mother briefed her on the pain and that it was the most horrific experience, body wise. But that it became worth it.

She pushed, and pushed, and pushed, until her whole body felt like it was about to split in two from the exertion. Sweat beads stuck itself to her face, matting her red hair to her slick skin.

“One more,” she was told.

So she pushed once more until the squealing of her baby girl filled her ears and she felt like all her pain was going to melt away.

“It’s a girl,” Henry said with a big smile etched on his face.

The woman helping them out, the midwife hired by Henry and her before the birth, helped to check on the baby and deemed her _perfect_.

“What do you want to name her, Cora?”

Cora doesn’t answer, not until the midwife thrust the little squirming baby into her waiting arms. She rocked soothingly, looking down at the pretty baby with big, dark almond-like eyes and a face that almost startlingly looked like Cora when she was a girl.

“Regina,” she responded after a moment.

“How come?”

Cora looked down at her little girl again. “Because she’ll be a Queen one day.”

* * *

Cora didn’t know when it happened, but she fell asleep. How she managed to with Regina wreaking havoc on her body while she tried to breastfeed, she had no idea. But the little bundle is no longer in her arms. Odd.

Henry took her, she guessed, as she blearily opens her eyes.

Sitting in the chair beside her bed is not Henry, but someone else entirely.

_No,_ she corrected, _not someone else._ Something _else._

Her blood turned cold the instant she saw him holding a content Regina, her tiny face nuzzling itself in his chest and the blanket around her.

“Hello, dearie,” the man said cheerfully, looking down at Regina. “She is going to be a very, very dazzling beauty, you know. And very powerful. Wonder _who_ she gets that from.” He cackles lowly, careful to not wake up the baby.

“You can’t do this,” Cora rasped as she sat up, attempting to cover herself with the make-shift gown. “You can’t take her. She’s the only daughter I will ever have.”

He gave her a grin. “Oh, how sad,” he crowed, pouting. “But a deal is a deal, dearie. You know that if one doesn’t deliver, I’ll get what I want one way or another.”

“Please,” Cora whispered, looking at him with pleading eyes. “Please don’t take her. Can’t we strike another deal?”

Rumplestiltskin, the name still made Cora shiver, stood from the chair and bounced the baby and looked down at her with an eerie kind of smile.

“I don’t think another deal can be struck.”

“She’s my only daughter,” Cora repeated.

Rumplestiltskin’s cold, unforgiving eyes meet hers. “She’s my only daughter, too.”

* * *

“Da-da."

The name, almost in an affectionate manner, made Rumplestiltskin freeze. Made him stop all movements he was making at his spindle.

He turned to the girl in the crib, she was only but two and a half. She was a quiet little girl, but man, did she have fight in her. Rumplestiltskin liked that in her.

“What did you say?” Rumplestiltskin asked, silently wishing that he could gloat in front of Cora that _her_ little girl is his.

“Da-da,” she repeated as if she could understand what Rumplestiltskin has just said.

_She probably can,_ Rumplestiltskin thinks dimly as he looked at the girl. She was a very bright child. She had said plenty of words, but she never really called him anything.

Until that very moment.

“Oh, this is delicious,” Rumplestiltskin said to the baby.

She cooed at him in response, falling backward on her butt—seemingly graceful for a little baby who just fell backward—and looked up at him with wide eyes.

No, she was nothing in comparison. This little girl was not even a replacement for his beloved son. Not at all, but she was going to be powerful one day. Powerful, and beautiful, and important. She was going to be feared, he knew it. She was going to be his perfect monster.

He knew the moment he touched her that he’d be just what he’d need when the time came. That she’d be powerful enough to do anything he wished her to do. 

It wasn’t that painful fact that the child was _his_ that made him take her. No, it was the fact that he felt her importance from the very first time he held her.

Cora, the undelightful wretch, had found a loophole all those years ago and figured out his name. He had to make sure he got her spawn. How better to do it than to seduce the girl and then get her pregnant?

Rumplestiltskin cackled to himself at the memory of his manipulation, and in turn, Regina giggled from the crib.

“Oh, you’re a special one, dearie. You don’t even know.”

A smile greeted him in response.

* * *

If Cora’s calculations are correct, it would be one day before Regina’s fourth birthday. She needed to get her back. Time was running out, and she was not nearly close to getting what she wanted since she found out she was going to be birthing one of the most powerful young women in all the realm. She needed her. To mold her into the perfect daughter; to make her Queen.

She told Henry that she was going out with one of her girlfriends, although Cora and him knew that she didn’t have any. No, she gathered he knew the truth of where she was going, but pretended not to.

She had a few enchantments in mind, so she could cross the barrier of Rumplestiltskin’s mansion without detection. And she did so, much to her surprise.

Creeping inside, she looked around. It was a chilling place, not warm or homey at all. How someone could live in such a place—with a child, no less—Cora could not understand. But she figured that he wanted Regina for the same reason Cora did; power.

She heard a small cry, and she knew instantly she found what she was looking for. She followed the noise, ear pressed to a cracked open door. She heard the noise again. With a triumphant grin, she went to go turn the handle.

“Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast, dearie.”

_Shit._

She whipped around and saw Rumplestiltskin leering at her from the opposite side of the large circular hallway of rooms.

“I’m taking her back, _Rumple_ , _”_ Cora snapped. “And you’re going to let me.”

He let out his insane chuckle, the high-pitched noise making the hairs on the back of Cora’s neck stand on end. “And why would I ever do that?”  

“Because she’s not yours.”

* * *

Rumplestiltskin narrowed his eyes as the redheaded sorceress made her way into Regina’s room and went to go pick her up from the crib.

This gained a cry and when Cora made way to leave, passing Rumplestiltskin on the way, the baby clenched and unclenched her fists at him. Regina wanted to be held by him.

“How ‘bout that, dearie,” Rumplestiltskin said, almost in a purr. “Looks like your darling little girl would prefer me to you.” If she couldn’t stay within his reach because of a deal that was struck, he could at least try to keep Regina this way. “Do you know she calls me da-da?”

“No matter, Rumple,” Cora said dismissively, bouncing Regina in her arms to try to shut her up. “She’s not yours. I can give you magic proof.” Her face was stoic.

Rumplestiltskin studied her, no detection of a lie anywhere on her. “No, I believe you.” He doesn’t, not really. But this plan that just made its way into his head is so much more delicious. “But you can take her. She was quite a burden.”

Cora raised an eyebrow. “You’re letting me take her.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. And she couldn’t help but sound completely shocked.

“Yes,” he replied, as if she was stupid. “No leave my grounds.”

Cora didn’t say a word in response, but she shuffled from his corridor and made her way into the front foyer in a quick time.

“One more thing before you go, Cora,” he said, using her first name with disdain. “If anything _ever_ happens to you, I will have her.”

“I’m sure you will, Rumple,” she sneered, and then she and Regina were gone.

Rumplestiltskin laughed cheerily, triumphantly.

Cora may think she had won; but he knew. Cora and Regina will not get along. What, with Regina being reserved and free-spirited. Cora would break her, and Regina would be pushed over the edge. And that’s when he will come back into her life.

He will keep an eye on the little girl. And he _will_ have his monster.

Because a deal’s always a deal.


End file.
